To compete on costs with fixed-bottom offshore wind and other renewables, the floating wind industry should industrialize the foundation in the same way it has manufactured and commoditized the turbines for onshore wind, according to Henrik Stiesdal, wind energy pioneer and former CTO of Siemens Windpower.

About 15-20% of the wind energy projects installed in the United States since 2000 could be repowered to capture federal tax after the extension of the production tax credit (PTC), said Kevin Smith, director, Asset Management & Operating Services at the Renewables Advisory within DNV GL – Energy.

Cold climate and de-icing technologies are improving the business case for wind power in Canada, but icing prediction and assessment remain problematic for the industry, experts told Wind Energy Update.

The demand for cable lay vessels will “pick up considerably” in the German, U.K. and Dutch offshore wind markets and remain sustained by at least decade’s end, Andy Readyhough, senior business development manager at DeepOcean, told Wind Energy Update.

Using drones that follow automated flight paths without the need for a human pilot could allow wind farm project teams to inspect up to twice as many turbines in a day as they can today, experts told Wind Energy Update.

Improving wind turbine reliability to 99.5% will require new data analysis approaches across the industry as existing techniques won’t allow the sector to go above current reliability levels, according to Carsten Westergaard, senior advisor, Wind and Water at the Sandia National Laboratories and Professor of Practice at Texas Tech University.